DR. JOHNSTON MYERS AND THE IMMANUEL PLAN
We have knocked out the heavy stone barrier which stood between us and the people and placed in its stead a glass, business, inviting front, bearing such announcements as, “We worship, we heal, we clothe, we feed, we find employment for those in need”; “Your friends are inside, come in.” Between five hundred and one thousand people accept this invitation daily. We are prepared to meet and help them.
This is what Dr. Myers has done with a typical, forbidding, gray-stone church, the Immanuel Baptist Church, at 2320 Michigan Avenue. For twenty-seven years he has been pastor of this church, and all that time he has been adhering to the Immanuel plan outlined above. For ten years previous to his coming to the Immanuel Church, he was pastor of the Ninth Street Baptist Church of Cincinnati, where he followed this scheme of serving humanity as well as God.
Dr. Myers is a practical religionist. He is bringing religion out of the clouds, and has made it an everyday, functioning affair. In his mind it does not hurt a church to have a kitchen in the basement nor to operate a restaurant in the building. His church serves an excellent meal for thirty cents. Many of the workers in the automobile salesrooms and the students from the medical college near by are in the habit of taking lunch at the church.
Most of the churches in the business area have closed their doors, but the Immanuel Baptist is more conspicuous today than ever before. The business men on the street are proud of it. They contributed recently to help rebuild it after the steeple had been blown down by a gale. The church does not serve its members as it used to, because most of the families have moved away and now most of its congregation is composed of homeless men.
Dr. Myers does not try to preach to the men, nor does he try to use the material aid he gives as a means of coaxing men to become converted. He does not believe in such conversions. He and his staff have learned that the average homeless man cannot hold money. The men who apply know this too. “Johnston Myers will feed anyone but it is pretty hard to get any ‘jack’ from him.”